


Too Fragile in the Ending (The Language of Loss Remix)

by knittycat99



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittycat99/pseuds/knittycat99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doors have given Blaine amazing gifts in his life, but they've also torn his life apart.  Learning to dream again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Fragile in the Ending (The Language of Loss Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wintercreek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/gifts).
  * Inspired by [we all write our own endings (and we all have our own scars)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/314812) by [wintercreek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek). 



> Thanks to asecondgrace for the beta.

**Now**

Blaine stands outside Kurt’s hotel room door and rocks back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet.  _It’s just a door_ , he says to himself.  _It’s just a door._

Except that it’s _not_ just a door.

Doors have given him amazing gifts and they’ve torn his life apart.

He takes a deep breath and steps back.

**Then**

Blaine slips through the back door into the kitchen.  The air conditioning prickles his skin, which is sun-warm and tight from the copious amounts of chlorine in Brittany’s pool.  His flip-flops smack on the tile as he walks over to the fridge and grabs a can of root beer, pops the top, and takes a long drink. 

It’s way too hot outside for it to only be the middle of June.

He wanders into the living room and starts up the stairs; his father’s car is in the drive but the house is quiet.  Blaine doesn’t want to look _too_ hard for him because things have been stiff and stilted between them since Blaine transferred to McKinley.  The acceptance to Stanford hasn’t changed anything, nor has graduation.  Blaine’s just holding his breath waiting for the summer to be over.

He’s halfway up to his room when his father’s voice reaches him from the office.  “Blaine?  Come in here for a minute?”

Blaine heads back down to the main level and pokes his head around the open office door.  “Hey.”

His dad scowls at him.  “I thought you had a job.  Why are you still wasting time with those kids?”

Blaine leans against the doorframe.  “Work starts on Monday and it’s not _wasting time._   Sam’s going back to Tennessee tomorrow.  This was our last chance to be together.”  _To be a family_ , he thinks, because without Kurt in his life the other kids in Glee have been his home.

“I wish you’d make more of an effort to see your Dalton friends.”  His father shifts a pile of papers and flips open one of his professional journals. 

Blaine just scoffs, because really?  The Dalton he left isn’t the Dalton that exists now . . . bullies and cheaters and something more twisted than Blaine could have imagined two years ago.  “I don’t have anything in common with those guys anymore.”

His father’s head bounces in the barest of nods.  “We need to talk about college.  You’ve had enough time to fool around.  Stanford is the perfect place for you to get serious, meet a nice girl, and settle into a career path.  It’s your chance to grow up.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  The words are out of Blaine’s mouth before he can stop them.  “You still think that being gay is a _phase_?” 

“Language,” his father scolds.  “I have no idea what’s going on with you anymore.  You don’t even seem excited about Stanford.”

“I’m not.”  It’s a weak half-lie at best.  Blaine is excited, but mostly about getting out of his father’s house and trying to figure out his life.  He likes to think he’d be _more_ excited if he were heading to New York, or even just to _any_ school he chose himself, but even _that_ isn’t a sure thing these days. 

“It’s a great school.  I think you’ll be happy there,” his father reassures him.

Blaine frowns.  “ _You’ll_ be happy I’m there.”

“I’m happy that you’re continuing the Anderson legacy at Stanford.  At least you didn’t decide to spite me by picking an in-state school.”  His father’s voice drips with scorn.

Blaine feels all of his long-contained rage about the limitations on his college choices boiling up inside him.  He tries to stop.  He _really_ does. 

He can’t, though; at least not before the words have fallen into the space between him and his father’s desk.

“I didn’t pick Stanford because of the _Anderson legacy_ , I picked it because it’s the farthest I’ll be able to get from _you_.”  He’s almost spitting and his head is pounding.  “You want to control everything.  You want me to be your little robot or whatever, but I’m _never_ going to be like you.  I’m never going to be the son you want, whether I go to New York or California or _China_!  I’m never going to be straight and I’m never going to be perfect.  Why can’t you just let me be _me_?” 

His father stares at him, blinks.  Pulls his glasses off, folds them carefully on the desk in front of him and stands.  “We all have our places in this world.  I’ve let you indulge your fantasies for long enough, Blaine.  It’s time for you to give them up and step into your place.”

Blaine feels his spine lengthening.  He stands up straight, even as he’s a little wobbly in the doorway.  “No.”

He thinks that this is the first time he’s ever openly defied his father with words.  He’s done it plenty in his actions and inactions, but he’s never been brave or careless enough to put voice to it.

“You don’t have a choice here, Blaine.”

Blaine can feel himself slipping, losing his filter and his control, but he knows that if he gives in now he’ll never be able to go back.  He closes his eyes to get his bearings and he can see his future self using alcohol to take the edge off a sham marriage and a mind-numbing job.  Nothing creative.  Nothing exciting.  No man he loves.  Just an endless string of days in his approved Midwestern life.  He’s almost knocked over with the despair of it.  “I’m not a minor anymore,” he challenges.  “I can make my own choices.”

His father actually laughs right in his face.  “I’d love to see you try,” he scoffs.  “You have no idea how to begin.”

Blaine rolls his eyes.  He knows it’s childish and that it will draw even more of his father’s anger.  “And whose fault is that?  How am I supposed to learn if you never give me the chance?  If everything I do in my whole life is just for your satisfaction?  How am I supposed to grow up and be a part of this world if all my choices are taken away from me?”

His father is silent for a long uncomfortable moment, which makes Blaine feel like he’s being judged and found desperately wanting.  “You do have a choice,” he says carefully.  Anxiety knots tight in Blaine’s stomach.  “You can rise to meet this family’s expectations of you or you can leave.”

Blaine shakes his head.  “What?”

“If you want a choice that badly, if you want control over your life _so much_ , then those are your options.  If you leave, you’ll be on your own completely.  Your mother and I won’t bail you out.  You’ll have to figure out how to pay for the balance of your tuition yourself.  You won’t be my son.”

It’s no kind of choice.  Blaine’s father has been a lot of things in Blaine’s life.  He’s been careless and absent and disengaged, but never deliberately cruel.  Blaine stands there, shaky and stunned, for perhaps too long before he finally gathers himself and starts toward his room.

Maybe it’s a challenge, maybe it’s not.  But Blaine knows that if he stays he’ll be agreeing to the half of a life his father wants for him and he just can’t do that.

“Blaine.” 

Blaine doesn't turn, merely stops just long enough. "I'll leave once Mom gets home." The words get choked in his throat, but he can't give himself away. He has to get through this, so he continues up to his room, mind racing with everything that has to be done.

“Blaine!” his father calls again, sounding a little frantic and Blaine thinks in the very furthest part of his mind that maybe it really _is_ a challenge, but he can’t back down.  He’s made his choice. 

He strides up the hall, every step a mountain, and slides into the refuge that was his bedroom.  He closes the door behind him and sets to work.

**Now**

He wants to knock, he really does, but his wanting is mixed with fear and he just can’t.  The fear makes his arms limp, sends his feet shuffling backwards, and pushes his body into the middle of the parking lot.

It would be so easy to just go, to walk back across the street and pretend like Kurt hasn’t just dropped into his life for a second time.

They’re not boys anymore.  They can’t smooth things over with a song or well-placed words of apology.

Blaine just wants to explain, to try and make Kurt understand why things turned to smoke between them.  He knows he has no right to ask for anything.  All he wants is a chance, but he doesn't expect even that.

He’s torn, still, and his hands are getting cold.  He’s a heartbeat away from giving up when the door he’s been staring at for fifteen minutes flies open.  Kurt strides out and skids to a stop when he sees Blaine.

Blaine takes a breath.  His heart is pounding.  It’s not so different , really, from that spring day all those years ago.  _Oh, there you are_ , he thinks.  “Hi,” he begins.

**Then**

Blaine is having one of those days when he’s missing Sheila like crazy.  His produce came in as usual, but the rest of his delivery is late.  It was supposed to be in before 7 and now it’s edging toward 11 am and he’s down to his last half-dozen eggs because apparently everyone in town woke up craving omelets. 

He just wants an extra set of hands, someone to watch over the home fries and eggs on the flat top while he calls and yells at the purveyor.  Or better yet, someone to let him hide in the kitchen with the home fries and eggs while they do the yelling for him.

 _Oh, come on_ , he berates himself.  _You’re a business owner now.  You can take care of this._   His hand is hovering over the talk button on the phone when the door sweeps open and he pauses, just in case it’s the delivery guy.

It’s not.

He smiles at the girl, who is wrapped in a hoodie about three sizes too big for her slender frame.  She’s got the road-worn look Blaine recognizes from all the people who stumble in off the highway on their way through to someplace bigger and better: pale skin, glassy eyes, and a weariness that seems to be settled into her bones. 

“Go ahead, sit anywhere you want.  I’ll be right with you.” 

He expects her to take a table, but she plops onto one of the stools at the counter and gives it a little twirl before plunking a crumpled dollar bill and a handful of coins onto the Formica.  “May I have a coffee, please?” she whispers.  “Decaf.”

Blaine dials the customer service number and tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear.  He reaches for the pot he made fresh fifteen minutes ago and pours a cup for the girl.  She dumps three heaping spoons of sugar in while he navigates the automated menu.   When she glances around the counter, he reaches into the small service fridge and pulls out a little pitcher of cream.  She adds a generous splash and smiles at him, weak but grateful.  Blaine nods and mouths _be right back_ to her before ducking into the kitchen to talk to the person who finally answers the phone; he doesn’t need to yell in front of any customers, much less in front of a teenager who looks like she’s been through some kind of wringer.

Blaine cooks while he waits, sautéing onions in a little butter and dicing tomatoes and scallions.  He uses three of his last eggs, a little cream.  Salt, pepper, and the shallot seasoning he loves.  He pours the egg over the onions and, once the eggs are cooked through, he adds a generous handful of shredded gruyère, the tomatoes and scallions.  Folding one side over, he turns the heat off and covers the pan with a lid to make sure the cheese gets melted.  He pops two thick slices of his favorite multigrain bread into the toaster and grabs two plates from under the heat lamp.  The service agent finally clicks back onto the line as he butters the toast and reassures him that the truck will be there within the hour.  He breathes a sigh of relief as he hangs up and plates the food.

Cooking always makes him feel better.  He’s calm and smiling when he backs out the double doors into the seating area and sets the plate in front of the girl.

She stares at him and shakes her head.  “I can’t- I can’t afford that.”

Blaine eyes the pile of bills and coins next to her.  “On the house,” he says softly.  “You look like you could use it.”

She frowns.  “My mama taught me not to take charity,” she tells him, but tucks into the omelet and toast as if she hasn’t eaten in days.

“Consider it paying the kindness forward,” he shrugs.  “Someone did the same for me, once.”

She drains the last of her coffee and Blaine nods to the pot.  “Another cup?”

“Please.” 

“I’m Blaine,” he offers as he fills her cup and then pours a cup of regular for himself. 

“Carrie.”  She eyes the last three bites of egg on her plate warily.  “I might be too full.”

Blaine smiles.  “Let it sit a little.  You don’t have to rush.”

“You got that right,” she mutters.  “Damn car.”

Her scorn feels familiar.  “You break down?”

“Yeah.  I just need to keep going.  I- I shouldn’t stay here too long.”  She looks a little frantic.

“Running from or running to?”  He steps out from behind the counter and settles on the stool next to her.

“Excuse me?”

“Running from somewhere or running _to_ somewhere?”

Carrie shrugs.  “A little of both, I guess.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“You’re not some kind of creeper or anything, are you?”

“Please.”  Blaine huffs at her.  “I’m gay.  You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“And I’m pregnant.”  She looks startled for a moment, as if she hadn’t expected the words to come out of her mouth.  “Wow.  I, um . . .”  She stops, looks embarrassed.  “That’s the first time I’ve actually said it out loud.”

“Congratulations?”  Blaine’s cautious.  He has no idea what her situation really is although he can make some pretty strong assumptions.

“I’m going to California, but my stupid car . . .” she trails off, and Blaine nudges her forearm.

“I can help, if you want.  There’s a good mechanic up the road and I have a guest room.  No funny business,” he waggles his finger at her.

“Right,” she says.  “Because you’re gay and all.”

“Exactly.”

It all feels familiar, but strange at the same time.  He thinks of Sheila, knowing that she would have done the same thing because she _had_.  Four years ago, he had stumbled into her world, broken up and broken down and more lost than he’d ever expected to be.

“What do you say?  Let me help and you can pay it forward in your own way, someday.”

Carrie takes one last bite of her omelet and closes her eyes. 

“Okay.”  She pushes the plate away and offers her hand to shake.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

**Now**

Blaine follows Kurt into his room.  He waits while Kurt moves his bag and coat, and settles carefully onto the bed.  Blaine’s body barely remembers when things were easy between them, but the ghost of that feeling is suddenly awake and doesn’t care at all about explaining what went wrong between them.

"Have a seat," Kurt pats the bed and Blaine slides into the open space next to him, close but not too close. 

He doesn't know where to start.  There's so much to say, too many things that need explaining.  He's not sure if he should start with the freshest misunderstanding, Carrie and Anna, or the California lie that started everything so long ago.

He wants to take off his fake ring, set it on Kurt's nightstand, and forget all the things and people he's still expected to be.

He opens his mouth to say _my life here is nothing like you're assuming, as **everyone** assumes, _but what he says instead is _I never told you why I started looking at schools in California._ Blaine starts there, and when Kurt doesn't interrupt or cut him off except to ask gentle questions in that way of his that hasn't changed at all, he just keeps talking.  He speaks every last one of his truths, the ones that not even Carrie knows.  When he's done and yielded the space between them to Kurt for his own telling, he's honestly not sure what just happened.

He listens to Kurt, aches for Kurt's lost dreams like he aches for his own.  Blaine can’t help but feel grateful for the fate of it all, though; that Kurt stopped for the night _here_ for no real reason feels like a second chance Blaine doesn’t really deserve.  He wonders whether it's possible for them to move forward and through to something more than this pretend life that Blaine sometimes resents. 

Three and a half years into the lie, Blaine still wonders if he should have just lived the life his father wanted for him.

But Kurt is here now, and Blaine knows that this is his last best chance.  They're not going to get a third try.   The fates will never grant them that.  When Kurt leans in slowly, carefully, Blaine doesn't pull away.  He doesn't fight, but he doesn't push either because, god, it's been forever and he could lose himself so easily.

It feels for a brief shining second as if Kurt is going to give in for both of them, but then the energy changes and Blaine blinks and they're strangers again.  The space where Kurt's body was is empty and Blaine is yearning hot and sweet and long-forgotten.  His brain isn't working even close to right, desperate hope warring with bitter reality.  "We can't," he begins, and then changes course mid-thought.  Kurt is going to LA.  It's far, but it's not Ohio or New York.  Blaine wants to try, he does, but distance was what tore them apart the first time.  All he knows is that he doesn’t want to walk away, yet.  "How would this even work?"

**Then**

Blaine weaves around the kitchen counter over to the sofa where Carrie is stretched out in her pajamas watching an old _Criminal Minds_ episode.  Blaine knocks at her foot with his knee.  “All that murder can’t be good for the baby,” he teases and waits until she’s sitting up to hand over her plate.

“The baby’s the size of bean or something.  I don’t think it cares.”  She rests her hand on her abdomen and scowls.  “Other people are going to soon, when I start showing.”

“Eat your breakfast,” Blaine tells her.  “We’ll worry about everyone else later.”

Carrie frowns at him, but balances her plate on her knees and eats her eggs and toast, and half of her banana.  When she finishes, she sets the plate on the coffee table and burrows back down under the blanket.  She props her feet on Blaine’s thighs.  He chews carefully on his last bite of toast and then puts his plate on top of hers. 

“You’re really that worried about what people around here think?” he asks, picking up one of her feet and rubbing his thumbs into her arch.

“You _aren’t_?” she bites back.

Blaine shrugs.  “I guess I never really think about it.  People just sort of leave me alone and I don’t really make much of an effort.  I guess there was some talk when Sheila took me in, but I try not to pay attention.”

Carrie stares at him and it’s a little uncomfortable.  “Aren’t you lonely?”

Blaine isn’t sure how to respond.  He has his online friends and a couple of times a year he drives down to Phoenix to go dancing, but he never goes home with anyone or brings anyone home with him.  He supposes that he _is_ lonely, but he’s felt like that his whole life.  It’s nothing new for him.  “I suppose,” he finally admits, “but there’s not a lot I can do about it.  And, I try not to care too much what other people think, not anymore.”

She pokes just under his ribs with her toes and he jumps because he’s terribly ticklish there.  “You’re too young to be so jaded, Blaine.  And really, any talk that there _is_ about you is just going to get worse when you’ve got a visibly pregnant _child_ living in your house and waiting tables at your café.”

“You’re not a child,” Blaine says softly.  “No more than I was when I landed here.” 

“It doesn’t matter.”  Carrie snatches her feet back and sits up, tucking her legs under herself.  “People are going to talk even more than they already do.”  She drops her head against the back of the couch.  “I’ll do whatever you want.  I’ll even leave, if you think that’s best.”  Her voice is small and soft.

“No.”  Blaine isn’t a hundred percent sure what the answer _is_ , but he knows it’s not Carrie going off somewhere else.  In the month she’s been with him, he’s felt more at home in this town than he has since he landed here.  “Don’t go.  You’re—”  He starts into the thought and then catches himself because it’s ridiculous.  He has no right to even think it because he’s gay and Carrie’s seventeen and pregnant with someone else’s baby, and every dream for his life died the minute he stood up to his father.

Except, he knows that he might not have this chance again.

“I’m what?”  Carrie peers at him curiously.

“You’re family.”  It used to mean so many things to Blaine.  _Family_.  It was blood and it was community and it was unconditional love.  Now, it’s just a word loaded with want and loss.  “We could do it, you know.  Be a little family.”

“Unconventional,” Carrie says, biting her lip.  She smiles at him carefully.  “I’ve never been unconventional before.  My mama would have fits.”

“About you being knocked up or about you shacking up with a _homosexual_?”  Blaine draws the word out, teasing.

“Both.”  Carrie shifts again, leaning a little closer to where Blaine is, his arm along the back of the sofa.  “How would this work?”

Blaine sighs.  “We shouldn’t actually get married.  But I think . . .” he trails off and watches Carrie carefully.  She doesn’t react visibly, which could be good or could be awful.  Blaine keeps going.  “I think we should pretend that we’re married and that I’m the baby’s father.”

“That’s going to make things really hard for you, here.”

“Maybe.”  Blaine shrugs in indifference, because really, there’s nobody left in his life to disappoint except for himself.  “But it will make things easier for you and for that baby.”  He reaches over and takes Carrie’s hand.  “Trust me.  It’ll all work out.”

Carrie rolls her eyes at him.  “If I’m going to fake marry you, you’re at _least_ buying me a real ring.”

Blaine supposes that he should feel anxious or nervous, but instead he feels warm and peaceful as he settles in next to Carrie to watch the next episode of _Criminal Minds_.

**Now**

“This is your wake-up call,” Blaine says when Kurt answers his phone, voice gravelly and yawning.

“I hate you,” Kurt groans and Blaine can hear the blankets rustling.

“You won’t hate me when you open your door.”  Blaine tucks his phone between his shoulder and ear and shifts the tray with their coffees to his left hand.  “I brought breakfast.”

The connection goes silent, and Blaine waits.  It feels like half a lifetime before he hears the click of the deadbolt and Kurt is standing in front of him, rumpled and frowning.  Blaine hands him the drink tray, and Kurt quirks his lip up.

“You’re a god.  A god of coffee.”  He takes a sip and sighs.  He sits on the edge of the bed.  Blaine can feel Kurt’s eyes on him while he unpacks the to-go boxes with their omelets and toast.  “I thought maybe you had second thoughts,” Kurt says while Blaine still has his back turned.

“No,” Blaine reassures him even though he’d spent a good chunk of the night talking out the logistics with Carrie and wondering what the hell he was even thinking.  “No second thoughts.  There’s just a lot of _other_ details to think about.”

“Like?”  Kurt stands to meet Blaine, taking both of the food boxes and setting them aside.  “Talk to me.”

“Carrie’s on board with the plan, but I have no idea what _I’m_ going to do if I move.  I just- I gave up on all of those dreams so long ago.”  He gave them up and he hasn’t let himself even begin to dream them again.

Kurt takes Blaine’s hand; it feels familiar and foreign at the same time.  “You can have new dreams.”  His  lips are soft against Blaine’s cheek.

“It would be so easy just to run again,” Blaine whispers into Kurt’s hair.  “To leave here and not look back.  But, if we’re really going to have a chance this time, then I need to do this right.  We need to keep going slow.”

Kurt nods.  “Slow is good.  Maybe . . .” Kurt starts, then stops.

“Maybe what?” 

“Maybe next month you’ll come and visit me?”

Blaine smiles and tugs Kurt into his arms for a hug.  “I’d like that.”

**Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow**

It’s not quite how Kurt imagined it, the two of them sitting on the polyester bedspread in Arizona.  There's the screenplay, yes, that Kurt sells when he's been in LA for three years.  There's Blaine's college degrees, framed on the wall in the office; an A.S. in Culinary Arts and a B.S. in Food Service Management.  They’re just pieces of paper Kurt swore Blaine didn't need, but Blaine wanted desperately because college had still been his dream.

He has that now.  His degrees and Kurt's movies.  Anna for a month every summer.  And, Anna and Carrie both at Christmas (though Kurt swears they'll be moving soon, since Carrie met Victor at the restaurant party a year ago Christmas and has seen him more than once on each of her last two visits).  Blaine thinks it would be great to have the rest of his family with him in LA, but he won't force it with Carrie.

He rubs his face, pushes the start button on the coffee maker, and starts pulling fruit and eggs and vegetables out of the fridge.  Jenna is opening today, and Kurt was still up late writing when Blaine finally kicked off his chef's clogs and rolled into bed after 2 am. 

The radio under the cabinets softly plays one of the old dance songs he used to love.  He hums under his breath, swinging his hips as he chops and dices.  The sun is hitting the counter just right and Blaine is happy.

It's not the life he’d always planned.  It's not even the life he'd settled for once.  The spaces he's carved for himself are truly his.  His and Kurt's.  The night before a customer stopped him on a swing through the dining room and asked what his secret was, what made his food so good.  He has a stock answer, usually, for the people who like to think they care, about fresh local ingredients.  But, this woman had just looked at him over her decimated plate of chicken with honey-balsamic demi-glace and the tiny yellow potatoes he'd roasted with carrots and baby beets from the farmers' market.  He'd smiled at her, thinking of Kurt as together they’d picked out vegetables and herbs, and answered simply _love_.

She hadn't believed him, said surely that wasn't all.

"Love," he swore.  "Love and the beauty of surprises."


End file.
